Whole Earth: Beyond the Entitlement of the Property Owner

181 Pages·2022·5.256 MB·English

by  Ann E. Davis

Ann E. Davis
Whole
Earth
Beyond the Entitlement of the Property
Owner
Whole Earth
Ann E. Davis
Whole Earth
Beyond the Entitlement of the Property
Owner
Ann E. Davis
School of Management
Marist College
Poughkeepsie, NY, USA
ISBN 978-3-031-01933-3 ISBN 978-3-031-01934-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-01934-0
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To Bob and our family
Preface
The purpose of this book is to explore the property relation and its environmental
implications. My contention is that this concept provides the owner with the author-
ity to command other people and the Earth. This notion of property is a form of
knowledge, which is also enacted and defended by experts and the state. By treating
other people as objects, there is a form of behavior which is expected and enforced,
a form of compliance. This normative role then removes the agency of the actor,
who must follow the script. The entire capitalist system is then a process of enact-
ments which are beyond the control of the participants.
Property is a term which is widely known in the general public, as well as the
subject of scholarly debate in philosophy, political science, economics, and history.
This term structures daily life, and is understood to aid in life chances, although its
operation undermines ecology and personal independence, in my view. While prop-
erty is presumably an object, it is also a social relationship, capable of affecting
personal identity and political affiliation.
Knowledge of the system is important in all its manifestations, including key
terms, institutions, expertise, and debates, which requires the study of social and
natural sciences, as well as philosophy and history. There is a world view and value
system which can be explored, and possible alternatives articulated.
Chapter 1, “Beyond Reification: Envisioning the Earth,” explores the concepts
by which daily life can ignore the requirements of life, such as air, water, and stable
temperature.
Chapter 2, “The Modern Institution of Science,” explores the natural science
which enables control of Earth processes, without specifying the purpose.
Chapter 3, “History of Political Economy,” reviews the social sciences as well as
political economy, and the divergence from natural science.
Chapter 4, “Fictitious Capital: Money, the Symbol, and the State,” reviews
Marx’s insights into property and money, and how they are understood and enacted
in the capitalist system.
Chapter 5, “The Public Private Divide,” reviews the institutional divisions expe-
rienced as the “public” and “private,” even though the system operates as a whole.
vii
viii Preface
Chapter 6, “Abstraction and Reification,” further explores how real abstractions
and reifications permit the system to operate like a machine, with passive partici-
pants instead of collective agents.
Chapter 7, “Proletarianization and Commodification,” reviews the long-term his-
tory of the USA, and the processes of commodification of the land and proletarian-
ization of the population, with the impact on culture and politics.
Chapter 8, “Regional Ecological Communities,” provides an alternative organi-
zation, regional ecological communities, which places priority on Earth and human
capacity, providing a system for human agency and collaborative stewardship.
Chapter 9, “Conclusions,” reviews the remaining questions and further
explorations.
Poughkeepsie, NY, USA Ann E. Davis
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Mona Ali, Gary Dymski, Paddy Quick, Al Campbell, Kirstin
Munro, Chris O’Kane, and Paul Cooney for helpful discussions, as well as Jason
Moore, Diana Gildea, John Antenucci, Robert McAulay, Jeff McAulay, Lucy
Johnson, Leathem Mehaffey III, Mark Cladis, Edith Kuiper, and Hendrik Hartog.
Marist College students and colleagues have been very helpful, especially Helen
Rothberg, Zion Klos. Caroline Rider, Richard Feldman, James Snyder, Jessica
Boscarino, Steve Sansola, and Michael O’Sullivan.
All remaining errors and omissions are entirely my own.
ix
Contents
Part I Basic Framework
1 Introduction: Beyond Reification: Envisioning the Earth . . . . . . . . . 3
1 Summary of Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2 Review of the Literature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3 Life Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4 Techniques of Reification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.1 Property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.2 Money . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.3 Ecosystems Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.4 Public/Private Divide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.5 Modern Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5 Governance Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6 Freedom and Recognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2 The Modern Institution of Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1 History of Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2 Dichotomies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3 Standpoint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4 Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.1 History of Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.2 Feminist Critics of Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.3 Marxists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
5 Modern Sciences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.1 Co-evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.2 Human Exceptionalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5.3 Potential Bias to Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
5.4 Anthropocene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
6 New Collective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
7 The Limits of Modernity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Appendix: Consideration of Other Topics and Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
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xii Contents
3 History of Political Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2 Evolution of Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3 Co-evolution of Nature and Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4 Emergence of History, Political Economy, and Time . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5 Separation of Natural from Social Science and Economics
from History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.1 Property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5.2 Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5.3 Money, Finance, and Contradictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
6 Modernity and Capitalist Institutionalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
7 Varieties within Economics Discipline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
8 Re-envisioning the Human Relation to Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Part II C onceptual Development and Critique of Capitalism
4 “Fictitious Capital”: Money, the Symbol, and the State . . . . . . . . . . . 59
1 Modernity and Reifying Abstractions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
2 Review Literature Defining “Money” and “Capital” . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3 Multiple Usages of “Capital” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4 “Capital” Is the Name of a Complex Evolving Social System . . . . 62
4.1 Definition of Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.2 Logical Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5 Institutional Definition of Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
5.1 Consciousness, Roles, and Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.2 Reification of Money . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
6 Institutional Shifts in Capital Markets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
6.1 Merchant Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
6.2 Central Banks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
6.3 The Extension of Markets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
6.4 Financial Markets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
7 Case: Repo Hiccup of 2019 and 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
7.1 Historical Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
7.2 Shadow Banking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
7.3 Crisis Indicator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
7.4 Vulnerabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
8 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Central Bank Facilities in the Pandemic 2020 (Table 4.1) . . . . . . . . . 84
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
5 The Public Private Divide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
2 Public/Private Divide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91